The Cancelled Prime Minister: The Extraordinary Rise and Tragic Fall of Ramsay Macdonald - Couverture rigide

Reid, Walter

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 180526530X ISBN 13 : 9781805265306

Editeur : C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2026

Synopsis

‘Reid is a lively and likeable biographer … interested in MacDonald the man: his diaries, letters and poems.’ ― The Telegraph

‘This beautifully written book puts Ramsay MacDonald in his rightful place in the politi-cal history of the UK.’ ― Robert Lyman

How the first working-class politician to reach Britain's highest office was brought down, and his legacy disparaged.

Ramsay MacDonald was born an illegitimate child in north-east Scotland. Leaving school at fourteen, he seemed bound to follow in his ploughman father's footsteps. Instead, he would become the UK's first Labour Prime Minister--a friend of George V and a global political star. How did he get there from his Highland bothy? Why has he been erased from political memory? And how did this leftist parliamentarian end up leading a Conservative-dominated National Government?

MacDonald's was an elusive, Celtic personality, easier to criticise than to understand. Historian Walter Reid demystifies this fascinating politician, dismissing the common charge of treacherous ambition and tracing MacDonald's personal odyssey--including half a life grieving his wife Margaret, a remarkable feminist and social reformer lost young to blood poisoning. 

History has been unkind to MacDonald, and most often written with politically hostile pens. Drawing extensively on his private diaries, this biography restores a towering figure to his rightful historical place, and reveals his full complexity--a man not without faults, but able and honourable, with deep and widespread interests.

• A critical, but fair, biography of this forgotten British PM
• Exonerates MacDonald from the narrative that he led the Conservative-dominated National Government for reasons of treacherous ambition
• Resurrects an important political figure from the dust heaps of history

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Walter Reid is an historian educated at the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and the author of several acclaimed books on British politics and history, including 'Neville Chamberlain: The Passionate Radical'. He raises sheep and cattle in Scotland and grows olives in France.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 180526530X
• ISBN 13: 9781805265306
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 368
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Easy Access System Europe Oü, 16879218; gpsr.requests@easproject.com; ; Mustamäe tee 50, 10621, Tallinn, Estonia; Tallinn; 10621; Estonie